2008 Woodie Awards
Red Herring might throw you off
Anna Wiegenstein - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 7/5/07 Section: 80 Hours
Upon entering the Thayer Theatre to catch a performance of Red Herring, you may have to watch your step. This is no mistake - the shadowy aura that surrounds the audience immediately provides the perfect atmosphere for playwright Michael Hollinger's '50s-set tale of spies, Soviets, and shotgun weddings (literally - almost).
In Herring, the second installment in the Iowa Summer Rep's lineup this season, even the set is a mystery at first. What initially appears as a boring mass of wood undergoes a myriad of transformations by the time both acts are over, becoming everything from a kitchen in Wisconsin to City Hall in Boston to the dock of a military vessel in the South Pacific.
Though the settings vary greatly, Red Herring's plot is, at its core, about three couples who want to get married. Simple enough, right? Not exactly.
Maggie and Frank (Elena Passarello and Ben Hill), a hard-boiled coupling of detective and FBI agent, have a murder to solve. Lynn and James (Kristy Hartsgrove and Bradley W. Anderson) need to orchestrate a bit of espionage. Meanwhile, Andrei and Mrs. Kravitz (Jason Grubbe and Rachael Lindhart) have the pesky problem of working around their former spouses, dead or alive.
Whew. Needless to say, the three plots intertwine quickly in a fashion any Dashiell Hammett fan would admire. And though the narrative is continually shifting, Red Herring thankfully never confounds or tricks its audience. The action walks the line between farce and ridiculousness smoothly without becoming hokey - an admirable accomplishment.
Though the premise seems laughable, the production team's attention to details in musical cues and costuming are - no joke - fantastic. Every scrap the cast wears, such as a dumpy flowered housecoat or the layers and layers of pink sported by girly-girl Lynn, feels as true to the fictionalized setting as an episode of "I Love Lucy." Nearly as lovely as the outfits are the various lighting techniques employed, which do a great deal of work in creating a scene.
In Herring, the second installment in the Iowa Summer Rep's lineup this season, even the set is a mystery at first. What initially appears as a boring mass of wood undergoes a myriad of transformations by the time both acts are over, becoming everything from a kitchen in Wisconsin to City Hall in Boston to the dock of a military vessel in the South Pacific.
Though the settings vary greatly, Red Herring's plot is, at its core, about three couples who want to get married. Simple enough, right? Not exactly.
Maggie and Frank (Elena Passarello and Ben Hill), a hard-boiled coupling of detective and FBI agent, have a murder to solve. Lynn and James (Kristy Hartsgrove and Bradley W. Anderson) need to orchestrate a bit of espionage. Meanwhile, Andrei and Mrs. Kravitz (Jason Grubbe and Rachael Lindhart) have the pesky problem of working around their former spouses, dead or alive.
Whew. Needless to say, the three plots intertwine quickly in a fashion any Dashiell Hammett fan would admire. And though the narrative is continually shifting, Red Herring thankfully never confounds or tricks its audience. The action walks the line between farce and ridiculousness smoothly without becoming hokey - an admirable accomplishment.
Though the premise seems laughable, the production team's attention to details in musical cues and costuming are - no joke - fantastic. Every scrap the cast wears, such as a dumpy flowered housecoat or the layers and layers of pink sported by girly-girl Lynn, feels as true to the fictionalized setting as an episode of "I Love Lucy." Nearly as lovely as the outfits are the various lighting techniques employed, which do a great deal of work in creating a scene.
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